South Wales Police transforms 999 service

South Wales Police has consolidated all call handling to a single public service centre that now handles both non-emergency and emergency calls. The centre, which is one of the first to do so, has already generated internal cost savings on South Wales Police’s entire voice estate and its contact centre estate.

Enabling technology cost-savings, property consolidation and other efficiency savings, the new contact centre has allowed the force to meet reduced public spending and is expected to generate millions of pounds of savings over a four-year period.

Previously, agents were expected to pick up the call, handle the inquiry, dispatch and resolve the issue without access to real-time information.

Integrating Siemens Enterprise Communications’ OpenScape Contact Center technology with the force’s existing voice infrastructure has improved 999 call response times and effectiveness. First call resolution rates have increased through intelligent skills-based routing as calls are now graded according to priority and directed to the appropriate, specialised agent in the first instance.

Tracey Cook, public service centre manager for South Wales Police, said they have been impressed with the new system: “Emergency 999 calls are our number one priority. This means we need guaranteed performance and scalability from our infrastructure. We cannot have technical failures impacting our service to the public.”